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books and arts
The rise of the
professional
The Victorian Scientist: The
Growth of a Profession
by Jack Meadows
British Library: 2004. 192 pp. £16.95, $35
John Waller
In 1873 the Victorian scientific polymath
Francis Galton sent out a printed questionnaire to the most distinguished fellows of
the Royal Society in London. His aim was to
work out the ingredients of heredity, education, outlook and aptitude that went into
making a good scientist. The results were
published in his 1874 book English Men of
Science. To nobody’s great surprise, this
dogmatic hereditarian concluded that most
scientists were born rather than made.
Although he did assert that a religious education is harmful to the development of a
free, enquiring spirit, he focused almost
exclusively on the personal traits of the scientists, not on the social structures and contexts that impeded or aided their research.
And yet, as Jack Meadows explains in The
Victorian Scientist, Galton was living
through, and even helping to bring about, a
revolution in the way science was done.
British science, it is generally acknowledged, finally became a professional activity
during the lengthy reign of Queen Victoria.It
was a calling once dominated by amateurs,
many of them clergymen with undemanding
livings, barristers with few briefs or little
interest in the law, and gentlemen of leisure
unfulfilled by rural sports. But by 1900 it had
emerged as a full-time occupation practised
by salaried experts. It is also widely agreed
that this was a virtually unqualified boon.
The professionalization of science, which
began in German universities but later
spread across the developed world, was a
vital prerequisite for the discoveries that
have made science such a powerful force in
the modern world.
In an accessible style, Meadows charts the
long struggle that saw science enter school
and university curricula despite fulsome
opposition from the admirers of ancient
languages. He explores how scientists forged
links with both industry and universities,
and demonstrated the practical advantages
of scientific discovery (not least Lord
Kelvin’s contribution to laying the undersea
cables for international telegraphy), as well
as the potential of pure research. Meadows
discusses the transfer of mainstream science
from the garden, field and makeshift laboratory to the purpose-built and lavishly
equipped labs of the late nineteenth century.
This book also shows how the prestige of
science rose, and with it the willingness of
government to bankroll its endeavours. Less
Changing rooms: laboratories were transformed when professional scientists replaced amateurs.
and less often were scientists of humble
means obliged to eke out a living writing
textbooks and going on lecture tours. As
the state’s purse strings loosened, the social
complexion of science altered, with more
members of the middle and lower classes of
society entering its ranks. But, as Meadows
points out, there were plenty of losers in this
process of professionalization, as those with
dual loyalties to science and other callings
were increasingly forced out, demoted to the
rank of mere collectors and made to feel
unwelcome at the ‘high tables’ of science,
such as the Royal Society.
Meadows adds colour to this story with
plenty of striking anecdotes, such as William
Buckland dining on bluebottles, and Lyon
Playfair’s near-suicidal chemistry experiments. There are mentions too of Lord
Kelvin’s self-belief and Thomas Huxley’s wit.
But Meadows also makes more serious
points. There is much more to telling the
history of science than cataloguing its intellectual attainments. And, more importantly,
the achievements of science owe at least as
much to salaries and state support as to
flashes of brilliant insight.
The received model of scientific progress
— that it was brought about by a handful of
other-worldly “scientific Shakespeares”, to
use C. P. Snow’s phrase — is neither realistic
nor especially helpful. Charles Darwin seldom called on the government for financial
assistance, but his great breakthrough was
critically dependent on Britain’s trading
interests, a well-funded navy, and a vast network of trading posts, consulates and scientific societies back home that encouraged his
activities and helped him make sense of his
finds. One somewhat embittered contemporary pointed out further advantages that
Darwin enjoyed. “Darwin is an enviable
man,” he wrote, having “a pleasant place, a
nice wife, a nice family, station neither too
high nor too low, a good moderate fortune,
and the command of his time.” These last
three were particularly important. As Meadows emphasizes, the quality and quantity
of science rose dramatically when, having
been put on the state payroll, scientists were
seldom hamstrung by having poorly connected relations or little inherited wealth.
One serious omission from this book is
any real discussion of what the term ‘professional’ means, then and now. For instance,
some Victorian scientists thought the word
implied creating not university posts but a
powerful intellectual élite made up largely of
independently wealthy gentlemen. Nor does
Meadows consider how professions operate
as technocratic monopolies, often hostile to
the non-professional, no matter how competent his or her research. Huxley and his
allies, for example, fought hard to exclude
amateurs from Victorian science, even
though many of the greatest discoveries of
the day had arisen from the earnest endeavours of those who, like Darwin, had neither
laboratories nor official positions.
Nevertheless, The Victorian Scientist is to
be recommended for giving non-specialist
readers a much more complete picture of the
context of nineteenth-century science.
■
John C. Waller is in the Department of History
and Philosophy of Science, University of
Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
NATURE | VOL 433 | 17 FEBRUARY 2005 | www.nature.com/nature
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©2005 Nature Publishing Group
© 2005 Nature Publishing Group